Old Mr Jenkins from down the road was a sprightly ninety-four. He still lived alone. He still mowed his own lawn. His garden was a picture. He even made his own bread; in a bread-maker machine admittedly, but, still, it showed his independence.

The bread-maker could just about stand on its head and do a twirl. It was marvellous. Old Mr Jenkins delighted in experimenting with the variety of recipes that came in the instruction book. The trouble was he was the only one eating the bread so he had to wait a couple of days of bread-eating before he could try another recipe.

And then he cottoned on to the idea of giving some of the neighbours the bread. It wasn’t so much fun because he liked to try each loaf and he could hardly give the neighbours a loaf of half eaten bread.

His favourite recipe was a French Loaf. It took five hours of making time in the machine. He set it going and worked out that the machine would go beep-beep on completion around about three in the afternoon.

And so time passed. The neighbours were a little worried that they hadn’t seen old Mr Jenkins for a while, so they knocked on his door and there was no answer. They went inside and…

… let’s just say the bread was still in the bread-maker. Its little finish light was still going blink-blink-blink, but the bread was covered in mould.